The Unknown

Noah woke feeling awfully sore and tired, his eyes refused to open due to the brightness. Which was strange, because he usually woke up before the sun rises. Then he realized that he was on something hard and prickly, not his soft and cozy bed. His fingers touched something...putty like, with weird rubbery strands things poking out. After a moment of blinking, his blue eyes finally opened. He stared at the ground, then he scanned his surrounding.

He wasn't in his house.

Hell, he wasn't sure if he was still on Earth!

The putty thing that he had touched, was 'soil'. And the rubbery textured strands were probably grass, or some kind of plants like that. The whole field was covered by the putty soil and the rubber grass. It was almost like a kid's TV show kind of scenery. Especially since the putty ground was a orange colour and the rubber grass was a bright purple. Despite the childish scene, Noah couldn't help but feel disturbed.

And there was also three suns, one rising, one up high in the sky, and one setting. Thank god the sky looked normal. But if there was three suns like this, there won't be any night, right?

Another thing he found out when he sat up was that he was sleeping in a circular dent on the ground. It was kind of deep, the brim at his stomach when he stood up. There were dents all over the place. Some deep, some shallow, all circular and some also have people sleeping in them. Humans, to be exact. And Noah wanted to run over to one of them and just stay there, where there were people like him. He didn't want to be alone in a strange world.

But a blood curdling scream stopped him from leaving his hole. He ducked, only his eyes were above the ground, and saw two black things shredding a woman apart...!!! They looked like deformed stickmen, with kind spear like arms and long legs that were designed for jumping and speed. Like a kangaroo's leg, but stick version. The things didn't have any clear features, they were all distorted and black fog surrounded them. There was a mouth though, and sharp razor like teeth that sank into the poor woman who was already dead. They ate her!!!

Noah slid back inside his hole and wished fervently that they would go away. That they would just leave him alone. Another scream pierced the air, this time from a man. Hot tears streamed down his pale cheeks. The man kept screaming for help, but Noah only sit there and cried, not knowing what to do. He wished that this was just a ridiculous nightmare, that he would wake up and go to work like any normal day. But everything was so real and fake and the same time.

The man had became silent, and most likely dead. The monsters disappeared after they had had their feast, leaving behind more than a dozen of frightened and confused man and women, even children. And Noah.

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Andrew’s eyes cracked open, the light stinging them, impairing his already-blurry vision. He had not had a particularly good rest, and the splitting headache was not doing the boy any favours either. He groaned, rubbing what sleep was left in his eyes away, and blearily surveyed his surroundings. It was an odd place, to be sure – with soil akin to putty, and with grass that felt like rubber, he didn’t need his poor vision to be able to tell that the entire place was more than a little strange. The multiple suns only helped to back this theory of his.

However, he was shocked back into reality – a scream of terror and pain tends to have that effect on a person. Instinctively ducking, and looking in the direction of the scream’s origin, he observed the devouring of a woman before his very eyes. He did not do it easily, and he even felt somewhat sick afterwards. However, he had forced himself to watch, for the creatures doing the devouring were quite interesting spectacles by themselves. Grim, yes, and likely to kill without a moment’s notice – but, fascinating nonetheless. Another individual met an untimely demise, but throughout, he couldn’t help but wonder – why was this happening?

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Noah didn't waste time to cry over the dead people and fear the strange place. The more he knows about something, the less you fear it. And since he know absolutely nothing about this place, except the few facts that he had collected from observing the place, he was more than a little scared.

But he was determined to survive, and return to his own world.

Questions were sprouting inside his head. Where was this place exactly? Why was he here? He had a silly little idea of he being the 'chosen one', that he had to save this innocent looking land from horrid monsters, but the idea was quickly thrown out as there were more than a few dozen of people scattered around him. They all had the ability to survive. And he wasn't that special. He was just an average young man, with a girlfriend, a job and a small apartment.

How did they ended up here, in a strange world nobody thought existed? Can they return? Noah was rather sure that there was a way back, it was just up to them to find out. If they could enter the world, they could probably exit it.

How can he survive in this strange land? Honestly, Noah didn't know. He wasn't a burly and muscular man, but he was fit and lean. He wasn't sure what he could eat, or if there were any water that he could drink. There was no shelter against the monsters other than the holes on the ground. But he had to survive.

What should he do now? Make a plan. He need a shelter, and food and water. And he need to have a small group, since its easier to survive and camp when there were many people. But he shouldn't have too many. Maybe a group of three or four. Even two. But no more than that, a big group would catch the monsters' attention.

The field was clear at that moment, and Noah risked his life climbing out of the hole. He couldn't stay there forever, and he had to get to work as soon as it seemed safe.

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There was likely something wrong with Andrew, most people had concluded. Not anything major, but they figured that a screw inside his head might have needed a little bit of tightening. If one could see inside his head, it could be seen what they meant – instead of continuing to panic, or thinking on how he could escape without drawing attention to himself, he wondered what could be useful as a weapon. The topic would likely have come up eventually, but for him to so casually think about beating the living daylights out of a foe obviously much more dangerous than him, displayed some form of craziness or other.

However, common sense took hold of his psyche, and he regained the ability to think rationally. Somewhat. He began to try and analyse the situation, looking about, keeping a low profile. Getting eaten because he was too busy observing how not to get eaten, was an ironic death indeed. And would be painful, in more ways than one. So, he kept to his hole, hoping that they did not notice him, though he suspected that predators like them would not rely solely on sight to locate their next victim. It was a rule of thumb in the animal world – what was stopping the same thing here?

Andrew somehow mustered the courage to clamber from the hole in the ground, making sure not to displace anything that did not need displacing. At this point, he was willing to bet that even the slightest disturbance could alert the beasts making human Happy Meals of his fellow “survivors,” and wasn’t willing to risk proving himself wrong. He also figured that they were tougher than the average Earth-dwelling animal, but despite this, he felt more comfortable knowing he had a rudimentary weapon of some description. However, no weapons presented themselves to him, and he could see none within the immediate vicinity. Mentally sighing, he continued to pace tentatively away, hoping that someone would encounter him. There was no way in Hell that he was surviving alone.

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Noah scanned his surrounding, and he noticed for the first time that there was water in this strange world. He hoped that it was water, and not sparkly blue putty. There was only a bit of the setting sun visible on the horizon, and there was a shining, turquoise line that separates the sun and the orange putty soil with purple rubber grass.

It would probably take him a couple of hours of running to reach there.

Looking around, he noticed another person climbing out of his hole. Noah considered calling him, but he didn't want to risk attracting the monsters. As silently as possible, he walked briskly over to the other, avoiding stepping into holes. People stared at him pleadingly, but he couldn't do anything. It's not like he was some magician that could poof them back. If they were too scared to leave the hole, he won't force them out. A hand grabbed his leg, almost causing him to loose his balance and almost fall. He panicked slightly, but relaxed slightly when he saw that it was just a frightened woman. Glaring at her, he hissed "What do you want? Let me go!!!"

She silently shook her head, looking absolutely horrified.

"Look, I want to live. And I'm definitely not going to stay here. So get out of your goddamn hole if you want to come along!!!"

Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and she shook her head. "Stay... P-please!!!"

He shook his head and muttered a small apology, then he pried her hand of his leg, and then walked over to the other man.

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Andrew, not being the most normal of people, decided to return the gaze of one person, who was giving him a look akin to puppy dog eyes. His own expression was the visual equivalent of sarcasm – a similar look so blatantly fake, even the most incapable of face-readers (save for the visually impaired) would be able to tell that this was not a real expression being displayed. Another person shook their head, a horrified look on their face. Andrew grinned, and nodded his. He wasn’t just going to sit around – he wanted out of the place, and staying in a hole was essentially standing in your own grave. Without the comfort of actually having your whole body there.

Turning away from the other victims of what had supposedly brought them to this area, Andrew spied a potential water source a fair distance away. He was fairly sceptical, it had to be said – there was always the chance that the water was a red herring, and he would have expended all that time and energy to be mocked. Still, he thought nothing of it – the mere fact that he had something to work towards was good enough for him. Gingerly, he began creeping away from the beasts that would likely tear him limb from limb, and observed the reactions of the people stuck in the holes. Maybe they’d grow some spines – not all at once, though, that would attract too much attention.

It took all Andrew had not to cry out when he saw another person approaching him – not in anything but surprise however. He had honestly not expected somebody else to leave with him, but now that they had, he was slightly more relieved. Having a comrade-in-arms would make things so much easier. That, and he could use him as a distraction. Silently, he pointed to the potential water source hoping the message of “get there now” was clear.

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Noah nodded silently. But they need a plan though, because the beasts could just randomly pop up when they were running to the water source. There wasn't many spots where they could hide, and they had no weapons whatsoever.

After scanning the area a few times, Noah noticed that there were lesser people far away towards the water source. There were dents everywhere and it was rather similar, all about the same size, so they could probably jump in one if a monster pop up. But there would be absolutely nothing to stop them from looking in the hole and pulling him out and eat him.

He briskly walked towards the water source, not wasting time standing there. The other man probably followed, he wasn't too sure. Noah hoped he did though.

There had to be a way to stop the monsters from finding them! They need a shelter sooner or later, and just laying in open holes on the ground was not an option, since anything can attack them.

Noah stopped for a moment and stared at the putty soil. Kneeling down, he inspected it, pinching a piece away with his fingers. It was strange, a large uneven piece came off instead of just a small patch in between his fingers. The piece was moldable, and a little sticky.

Then he plucked a strand of grass, but instead he pulled a whole patch of ground up. He gaped, staring at the lond and complicated roots of the grass that held some of the putty soil together. Noah kept tugging on the piece until an almost perfectly cirle patch of grass was pulled off the ground, leaving a shallow dent.

So that's how the whole are formed?

Noah dragged the piece a little, then he covered one of the holes, like a lid. A lid!!!! The piece of ground was a couple of inches thick, and the roots held them tightly packed together. The thing was awfully heavy though...

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The holes dotted about the place reminded Andrew of the country roads he would occasionally drive along – or be driven along. Potholes everywhere, to be precise. Except the potholes were deep enough to conceal a man, and were essentially graves dug in putty for those who refused to leave them. Except without the possibility of having your whole body buried. That aside, the fact that there were this many hinted that even more people were there beforehand – but were they dead? There were no remains. Had they left? Had their corpses been cleaned up, or taken somewhere else? More and more questions raised themselves, and no answers were available to sate them.

Andrew observed his recently acquainted partner, looking quizzically at him in order to try to discern his actions. The large chunk of putty coming away caught him off-guard, however. Moist putty came away in clumps, yes, but dry putty had a nasty habit of crumbling in a person’s fingers – at least, the putty he was used to. That such a chunk had been pulled away so haphazardly raised his interest, and he moved in slightly closer, wanting to observe this development further. After all, in the place they were stuck at now, any developments were going to appear to be of importance. Even the ones that didn’t could actually contain necessary information.

He raised an eyebrow at Julian continuing to pull on the grass, but swiftly saw the fruits of his acquaintance’s labour – namely, that the section of putty appeared to be a lid of some sort. This was an interesting point, for Andrew – if it was a lid, it was covering something. But what did it cover? It obviously covered the hoes in the ground, if what had just transpired was anything to go by, but this wasn’t something he was completely certain about. Nevertheless, it was intriguing to think that the holes could actually provide some sort of viable cover, as opposed simply being… well… holes.

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Noah tried dragging the piece along, but it was just too heavy so he just left it there. He could probably peel another piece up.

The only problem was that the 'lid' could collapse on them...

As he jogged silently towards the 'water', he pondered about the problem. Maybe that could press themselves on the lid, not enough to push the thing up and blow their covers, but enough to stop the piece from collapsing if the monsters were to step on it... Or maybe find a steep, but narrow hole and an extremely big lid. But that would be really awkward, since he would be pressed to a stranger. Noah sighed in his head. And then there was the other guy...

He had no complaints so far, because he hardly even interacted with the other yet. He looked fit enough, hell, Noah suspected that he had more muscles than him (he had always been kind of a nerd), and he didn't look stupid... But then there would be the character, and Noah wasn't sure if the other would like him either. Who know? They might end up hating each other and killing themselves before any creatures could even find them.

For now, they had to find a shelter, some food and water before that could sit down and chat. And food is usually near a water body, where they were heading.

'But what if the sparkly turquoise line isn't water?' he thought. That would sucks, but they couldn't really do anything other than try to find another water source. Then comes the big question, what if this planet/world/dimension simply doesn't have water? Or maybe they do, just that their water is not drinkable. To humans.

Noah let out a small frustrated growl, but he continued to jog. They just had to find out.

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The exercise proved seemingly pointless – much to Andrew’s chagrin. They were wasting valuable time, and their bodies weren’t exactly immortal. They’d have to go somewhere, not just stand in one spot, and his partner was insisting upon some banal endeavour that proved to have little consequence other than delaying them. In fact, it practically took all he had not to hit his newfound ally. Fortunately, he managed to restrain himself, but only enough to make sure that he didn’t hit Noah. He did, however, shoot him a withering gaze, one that essentially spoke for itself. Not to mention the expression on the rest of his face.

Deciding to take the initiative, if his partner was going to be distracted by every insignificant anomaly that arose, Andrew motioned towards the supposed water source. The signal was subtle enough to not be noticed by any creatures that happened to glance over the general area, but it would be sufficient for issuing a command. And, while he hated taking command, Andrew needed this to happen. Hence, why he stood abruptly up, and decided to march onwards. He had no need to wait for Noah, if his idea of progress was pulling up dirt. He needed to get ahead, and if that meant abandoning the other victims, then he was more than willing to.

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